A team of builders, comprising residents from Magagula Heights in Gauteng, Germiston and twenty architecture students from Slovenia and their mentors, have shown that it is possible to construct cost effective and energy efficient buildings in a relatively short space of time.
The team worked together to complete a 280sqm building project comprising a classroom with its connected library, outdoor learning space and toilets at Ithuba Skills College in Alberton. Construction was completed within eight weeks at a total cost of R310 000.
The brief given to the students, who are studying at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia was to create good, sustainable, energy efficient architecture. They had to propose a simple building concept that could be constructed quickly from local, inexpensive materials.
Taking into account South African weather conditions, the classroom was designed as two separate volumes, covered with a floating metal roof. One of the volumes was designated as the classroom with a library and the other contains the toilets. Between the two is a covered space for outside work and learning.
Straw and clay, were used to create the walls of the new structure. Besides being cheap and accessible, these materials together have good accumulative properties for energy efficiency.
The clay was obtained two kilometres from the site on the plain next to Magagula Heights and the building team only paid for the digging and transportation by truck. The straw was also cheap, bringing the price of the walls for the entire building to less than R10 000.
During the eight weeks, the building team prepared the site, cast the concrete slab, erected the steel structure, welded window frames, rammed the straw and clay walls, cast the concrete toilet walls, covered the roof and built most of the furniture. For improved energy efficiency, the windows were innovatively connected in a double format to moderate the indoor temperatures in both winter and summer.
“Constructing a building of this size in two months is not easy, especially in an unfamiliar environment,” said said Anja Planiscek, one of the four student mentors. “We Europeans were also forced to understand time as a more relative dimension.”
An initiative of the Austrian non-governmental organisation SARCH (Social Sustainable Architecture), the building project at Ithuba facilitated an exchange of knowledge between the Magagula builders, students, most of whom had no previous building experience, and partners of Ithuba. This is the seventh building that students from various European countries have constructed together with local residents for Ithuba.
The classroom will benefit Ithuba’s learners as well as the Magagula Heights community which also has access to the library. Ithuba, the Zulu word for ‘possibility’, offers training to learners who complete their primary education at the onsite farm school, as well as adults seeking to improve their skills in woodwork, building, cooking and needlecraft.
“We did not intend to come, build and leave, but rather make a positive impact on the local economy, architecture and the quality of life of local residents,” said Planiscek. “Without the cooperation to build and learn together, it would have been difficult to complete the project from foundation phase to roof within our deadline.”
“Overwhelmingly positive results can be achieved when developed and developing nations work together on outreach programmes,” said Dr Prieur du Plessis, Honorary Consul of Slovenia, who attended the opening ceremony of the classroom. “South Africa can greatly benefit by forging stronger relationships with Slovenia, especially through links between educational establishments and by sharing skills in the area of affordable building.”
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